


No Man is an Island

by Rose_of_Pollux



Series: Inktober for Writers 2017 [24]
Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-24
Updated: 2017-10-24
Packaged: 2019-01-22 13:29:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12482716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rose_of_Pollux/pseuds/Rose_of_Pollux
Summary: In which THRUSH apparently succeeds in driving Napoleon to quit--but Illya vows to get to the bottom of things for his partner’s sake.





	No Man is an Island

**Author's Note:**

> For Prompt 24 of Inktober for Writers: Breakable

Illya had known from experience that an agent never knew what to expect when rescuing a captive partner. The relief he had felt upon seeing Napoleon alert, awake, and physically unharmed after he’d been captured after a failed mission (especially when they had found several bodies left behind at the satrap) was quickly eclipsed by the first words out of his mouth.

“I can’t do this anymore,” Napoleon had said.

And he had stepped into the U.N.C.L.E. vehicle without another word, staring at the seats. Illya had attempted to get Napoleon to open up, but he wouldn’t say a word of what happened to him—only that he wanted to quit.

Waverly had refused to accept his resignation, but did grant him time off, and granted it to Illya, as well, to look after him. Napoleon’s attitude towards Illya had stayed the same—he continued treat Illya as he always had, but the moment Illya brought up returning to U.N.C.L.E., Napoleon would refuse, insisting that he had to quit.

“You tell me everything,” Illya said. “What had happened to you that is causing you to act like this? You had no physical injuries—did they do something to your head? Drug you? Brainwash you?”

“They didn’t do a thing to me,” Napoleon insisted. “I’m fine.”

“You are not fine!” Illya insisted. “Napoleon, I know you. I have known you for years.” A thought struck him. “This is not who you really are; the Napoleon I know would not give up on those in this world who need his protection—he would not give up on his goals of preserving peace!”

“Things have changed—I’ve changed,” Napoleon said. “I have seen the futility of what I’ve been trying to do. I will help more people by staying out of everything!”

“Where on Earth would you get an idea like that!?” Illya asked, baffled. “Napoleon, what did they do to you!?”

“They didn’t do _anything_ to me!” Napoleon said. “That’s just it! They didn’t touch me, and they didn’t try to do anything to _me_!”

Illya paused, catching the emphasis in Napoleon’s voice and remembering the bodies that they had found, and a light bulb was now going off, illuminating a very horrific scenario indeed.

“Oh, Napoleon…”

“I don’t want to discuss it any further,” Napoleon said. “I don’t want to think about it. I just want…”

A sob escaped him, and Illya pulled him into a tight embrace.

“They… they brought someone in front of my cell each day…” Napoleon choked out. “And they killed them.”

“They couldn’t break your determination to help innocents,” Illya realized. “So they broke you by threatening to kill innocents until you agreed to leave…”

Napoleon responded by clinging onto Illya as though he was a lifeline, and Illya quietly comforted Napoleon, not sure of what he could possibly say. He stayed by Napoleon's side until he had fallen asleep, wrote a quick note saying he was going to be at headquarters, and went there, heading straight for the morgue.

After several grueling hours conducting autopsies on all of the bodies they had recovered from the satrap, one thing stood out—each one had fingerprints removed in some way, preventing easy identification. And, oddly, all but one of the bodies was male.

And that was when Illya got to thinking. There hadn’t been a recent upsurge in disappearances—if there had been, it wouldn’t have been just U.N.C.L.E. going after THRUSH, but every law enforcement organization that had jurisdiction in New York. If THRUSH had pulled a stunt like that, kidnapping random innocents off of the street for two weeks, they would have been dealt with. So where had their victims come from…?

Illya frowned, looking at the bodies. Perhaps they _weren’t_ so innocent after all.

The remainder of the night was spent getting dental records of known THRUSH personnel and comparing them to the teeth in the victims. And by the time morning had come, Illya had a stack of identity reports under his arm and a furious rage in his heart as he headed back to the apartment.

Napoleon was sitting forlornly at the breakfast table with a cup of coffee, clearly having been awakened by nightmares. Their cat was doing her best to comfort him, but he was petting her on autopilot as he looked up and saw Illya return.

“What was going on at headquarters?” Napoleon asked.

“Autopsies,” Illya said, and he placed the stack of identity reports on the table. “These are the identities of the people you saw getting killed—low-level THRUSH grunts, and one secretary. The cowards knew that if they had seized innocents off of the street to demonstrate their intent to you, they would have been stopped by far more than just you. So they killed their own men, all in the hopes that it would break you.” He watched as Napoleon looked through the reports one by one, his eyes widening as he recognized each picture. “I will let you do as you see fit, Napoleon. As for me, I will never forgive them for what they did to you; they took your noblest quality—your compassion for others—and exploited it to hurt you. I will make them pay for what they did to you.”

There was a long pause, and finally, Napoleon spoke.

“On one condition.”

“Name it.”

“Can you wait until I’ve recovered enough from this?” he asked. “I think they need to learn from me personally that my compassion should never be mistaken for weakness again.”

Illya nodded.

“It would be my honor to fight THRUSH alongside you once again,” he said.

“…Illya… Thank you…”

He pulled Illya into an embrace, and Illya knew that the words meant so many things that Napoleon couldn't vocalize at that moment.

At this point, he was just glad to have his partner back—and together, they would make THRUSH rue the day they had ever tried to pull this stunt.


End file.
